08/21/2016
Senator Sessions appeared on Fox News Sunday morning and for once he had an interviewer — Tucker Carlson — who is knowledgeable enough on the subject of immigration to have a decent conversation with the senator.Unfortunately, Senator Sessions was too polite to call Trump’s touchback scheme what it is, namely just more lipstick on the amnesty pig, characterizing touchback as “not… the best solution.”
From a psychological viewpoint, rewarding illegal behavior is always wrong, and particularly so when it followed the failed amnesty from 1986 when the promised enforcement never happened. Even hinting that some sort of forgiveness might be considered after shutting the border is poison. Any reward for bad behavior just incites more of same — something that parents and teachers know.
On the other hand, Sessions was quite right to emphasize that globalized economy of outsourcing, excessive immigration and bad trade deals have been devastating for all working Americans. In earlier interviews, he has admitted that he voted for globalist trade deals because of the rosy promises, but quit when he figured out the claims were bogus.
In discussing how he came to endorse Trump, Sessions recalled last spring, “My view was: This excessive flow of immigration was impacted adversely the wages of the American people, which is a plain fact. I also concluded that the trade agreements weren’t working as promised, and [were] depreciating the wages, the manufacturing base, and the jobs of Americans, and they both needed to change, and he was out there.”
Importantly, Senator Sessions recognizes that immigration must be legal, controlled and reduced for the benefit of the American people. As the senator said, “The idea that you would bring in more workers to take jobs while Americans are unemployed, having to go on welfare, is ludicrous.”
In fact, the reduction of immigration should be severe, considering the increasing use of automation and software to do human jobs.
TUCKER CARLSON: So BuzzFeed which is a fashion blog that has a news component to it had a headline this morning saying in effect Donald Trump has changed course completely on immigration: he’s no longer for deportation. It was a story about a meeting he had the other day with Hispanic supporters of his. Is that true? Has he changed his view on deportation?SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS: He has not changed his view but he had a great meeting with people who had different ideas and — I understand, I wasn’t there — but he had a good discussion, he listened to all the different views. Look. we need a lawful system of immigration. Trump is absolutely clear and correct on that. We must rein in the lawlessness first. We can’t talk about these other issues until that occurs. I think that remains his firm position.
CARLSON: So that anywhere between 10 to 12 million people here illegally whatever the number, Trump has suggested that they would be required to physically leave the United States, reapply in order to come back legally. Is that…
SESSIONS: I don’t know that he has formally said that he has discussed that, other people have discussed that. That’s the touchback idea. I’m not sure that’s the best solution to the problem, but it’s one solution.
CARLSON: What do you think is the best?
SESSIONS: I think we have to first end all the lawlessness. This can be done, Tucker. It’s very accomplishable with a strong president. A few laws would help, but actually you could do it with current laws, and that’s when you can begin to talk or more appropriately be honest about what you want to do with people who have been here a long time.
CARLSON: So what about legal immigration? We’ve got over a million low-wage low-skilled workers coming in every year into an economy that clearly can’t support them. Would Trump change that?
SESSIONS: We’ve got to consider that. Canada has a great system where they evaluate people: they apply, they rate them given points for things that are good for Canada. First and foremost, an immigration system should protect and serve the interests of the American people. We shouldn’t bring in people that can’t be vetted coming from areas of the world that are dangerous. We need to bring in people with higher skills. We should look for people who love America and value our values and want to be a part of that. People who learned English before they come should get a preference over people who can’t speak the language. So there’s so many rational things that absolutely need to be done as part of an immigration reform that I totally think this country is ready to discuss.
CARLSON: If you ran your office or your company the way we run our immigration system — just like giving the first hundred slots to the first hundred people who showed up — what would happen to your company?
SESSIONS: It just makes no sense, it absolutely makes no sense. We’ve got to fix this. We can do it. The American people will support it, but we’ve got politicians, particularly Democratic leaders and Hillary Clinton that want to give immediate amnesty to everybody, allow them access to every benefit in America, and then they don’t want to do the things necessary to gain control of immigration. So this is situation is untenable, it’s extreme: she’s to the left of President Obama.
CARLSON: Big time.
SESSIONS: Big time. It’s just amazing, really.
CARLSON: So I look at the polls every day of the presidential race, getting pretty close to election day really and it looks bad for Donald Trump and yet I hear a lot of his supporters say those polls aren’t real. Are they real? Is an appreciation within the campaign that it’s not on the right course at present?
SESSIONS: Well, polls are different. I mean the Los Angeles Times has him up by half a point nationwide. So there are other polls that show different things. This is a close race right now. When I ran for Attorney General in Alabama the first time, I was down 14 points in September and won by 17. President Bush in 1988 was down 15 points at the Republican convention and won overwhelmingly — what, every state but Massachusetts against Dukakis, so this is so far to go. Donald Trump is just now beginning to drive his message with these great speeches. He’s showing presidential leadership with the flood victims in Louisiana. I think this campaign is just beginning to take off. Donald Trump is going to win this election.
CARLSON: So what’s his pitch to black voters, if you can boil it down?
SESSIONS: This is really important. He’s saying that the agenda we’ve seen in the big cities and out of Washington for the last 30 years have not helped you. They have not. You bring in more workers than we have jobs — what does that do to wages and job prospects for struggling African Americans would like to rise? I mean you just pull down wages and you pull down jobs. And when you do a trade policy, Tucker, that kills manufacturing, eliminates high-paying jobs — that hurts our African-American community and Hispanic communities too. We need a leader that can change this economy, get us on the right path, end the lawlessness in immigration, fix our trade policy so that we can have a stronger manufacturing base and better jobs — that will be the best thing possible for African-Americans.
CARLSON: But hasn’t the Democratic Party been pretty good at convincing black voters that all non-white voters are in this together? Black voters whose families have been for 400 years and recent illegal arrivals from Guatemala were undercutting their wages — they’re on the same team somehow.
SESSIONS: It is sort of amazing, in my view. We have as government leaders have an absolute responsibility to the people who are here — lawfully immigrated or native born — that’s the first thing. The idea that you would bring in more workers to take jobs while Americans are unemployed, having to go on welfare is ludicrous. It makes no sense, Tucker, and I think the American people get it, but that’s the policy of the Obama and Clinton administration.
CARLSON: I bet if you polled a thousand people and asked, “Should we bring in more workers than we are creating jobs while Americans unemployed?” they would say “No,” and yet it persists, that’s our official policy. What’s the motive behind it?
SESSIONS: There are several motives. First, as a democratic political agenda at work here, and then there’s a business agenda at work here. Businesses want more workers at lower wages — that’s what they do. I mean, that’s the nature of the beast, but that’s not what politicians should look at: if you’re running for president of the United States you want wages to go up, not down. Give me a break. Businesses would like to see more workers and lower wages — that’s just the nature of the beast.
CARLSON: If Donald Trump articulated it that clearly, I think he would win 55 percent — just my guess. Senator Sessions, great to see you this morning.
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